In two starts, Cingrani has worked 12 1/3 scoreless innings with 21 strikeouts.

"Cingrani is the first callup if one of my starters go down," Reds manager Dusty Baker said.

There was thought of calling up Cingrani to help the bullpen while Sean Marshall was dealing with a shoulder injury. Marshall went on the disabled list on Wednesday morning.

"We kicked around Cingrani before," Baker said. "We didn't want to impede his progress in the bullpen when we're grooming him for a starter. If anything happens to one of my starters, we don't have a whole lot of quality backup."

Mark Sheldon is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Mark My Word, and follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.